Nine Notes on Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

Just finished this film. Once again, the critics are wrong. It's a great film that is pretty much indistinguishable from the originals stylistically. James Mangold once again gives life to an old genre:

-Phoebe Waller-Bridge is killing it, though I'm curious about Shia LaBeouf's absence. I wouldn't put him in cancelled celebrity territory, considering Honey Boy was such a self-aware work about his PTSD. Was it mostly because Harrison Ford and Shia LaBeouf didn't get along? Depending on how much you know about Harrison's gruff personality and dislike for working with Shia, it made for some very false notes when Harrison Ford was lamenting how much his son was lost (when we know Harrison couldn't stand his "son").

-I notice the villain is a professor at the University of Alabama which seems a cheap shot at red states: The implication being that these states were horrible to Black people, so sure, it probably makes sense they'd harbor Nazis. In real life, Nazis were harbored in Latin American countries, which were more progressive towards race than we were at this time anyway.

-Towards the beginning when Boyd Holbrook first appears with a man in a cane or crutches and he and two other goons corner Indy in a library. We don't see a shot of his death, but it's implied that he's crushed to death by several bookshelves. A bit too gruesome for an old guy in crutches? Besides if they killed the seceretery and other old professor, why not just kill Indy in that scene?

-I can see Indy being more a nominal hero in this story considering Mads' character strikes me mostly as evil because he's a scholar who happens to have been a Nazi in his past. In Raiders, Toht was planning on torturing Marion even when she surrendered and Belloq was quite comfortable killing Indy as a matter of egotistic rivalry. Mola Ram was framed as a devil worshipper (cultural relativism aside) and cult leader who had imprisoned every child within a 15-mile radius. In contrast, Doctor Voller mostly left the murdering up to the henchman, and even when he does pull the trigger, it's because of a necessity of his plan. 

-I've had so many brilliant professors in college who suffered the unbearable apathy of spoiled rich students who didn't belong in college. Oh, the tragedy. Just remember, apathetic college students, you're professor could have braved death multiple times and fought under Pancho Villa

-Props to the film for lampashading in dialogue an awareness that Indiana Jones straddled the line between grave robber and archeologist. I wouldn't want to see him completely cancelled through a modern lens, as an outdated cultural relic but some discussion of it is necessary.

-The found family trope is here and that's not a particularly deep take that Teddy is an stand-in for Short Round. However, there's a lot to be said for the fact that through five films, Indy has shown a strong affinity for every platonic relationship in his life: Sallah, Marcus, Oxley, the newly introduced Basil Shaw, and there must be some abounding sense of guilt that he wasn't there for his goddaughter. Even if Basil Shaw and Helena are canon foreigners, it's clever how one can already map out this conflict based on Indy's past relationships.

-It has to be said "wombat" is a dumb nickname. Maybe that's what chased her away

-There's nothing particularly charming about the modernization of the map overlays.

Am I too late to the party for Ally McBeal analysis?

I just watched 4 episodes of Ally McBeal last night. Here are some quick takes:

My take is that the show's appeal is that Ally is the unapproachable hot girl in high school and the show gives you a chance to live in her world.

This is reinforced by the fact that Ally acts like an adolescent: she has cutesy/girly mannerisms, she is pouty and has low self-esteem, she one of the most outwardly emotional people I’ve ever seen on screen or in real life, she escapes through fantasies, and she is overruled by her hormones. Although she tries to maintain that she is doing fine in life (she is) and that finding the right guy is just the last piece of the puzzle in her life goals, sometimes she’s overwhelmed with frustration.

What’s ironic is that this show is simultaneously really progressive in that Ally is highly capable, highly compassionate, and does very well in managing in what can only be described even by the standards of 20 years ago as a hostile work environment.

More than anything else, the show is just a really sexually charged one with really beautiful people on it (perhaps, Peter MacNichol won an Emmy because he’s not conventionally attractive and somehow managed to feel like he belonged). Nearly every time Ally meets a guy, I’m instantly put into will-they-or-won’t-they mode with guest star of the week. In one of the episodes I saw, a homeless guy derides her when she passes by (they do), in another episode, an obese man goes up against her in court (they don’t but he wants to), in another episode, a high school student is her client and she engineers a plan to boost his confidence by being his prom date. I was seriously wondering considering shows wouldn’t be cancelled back then for that, if she and the prom date would (thankfully they don’t).

Ally is a prime example of the Hollywood homely trope, wherein a star is so conventionally attractive that it's difficult to buy that her character wouldn't get dates. The in-universe excuse is that Ally is too busy to have anyone outside of fellow lawyers outside of her circle. That might make sense, but in the same way that Seinfeld feels dated because a number of their scenarios would have played out differently had the internet existed, I wonder if online dating might have cured her man problem. Ally's problem (from the sample that I saw) wasn't retainng or developing relationships. It was meeting guys. Sure, she would have had to sort out the losers from the winners from the hundreds of messages she would have received, BUT on the show she seemed willing to go out with losers because it was too much of a time investment to find the winners.

Dirty Dancing (1987) Review

So many prominent films from the 1980s are coming-of-age stories that for someone with a blind spot for this decade, it’s not easy to differentiate: Which of the John Hughes films are must-watch (answer: probably none, if the overrated film The Breakfast Club is any indication) and where do they stack up against Stand by Me, Heathers, Lean on Me, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Outsiders or Risky Business? This even spread to the decade’s landmark films in other genres: The Oscar-winning melodrama Ordinary People was told through a teenager’s perspective; one of the greatest romcoms involved a boy in a man’s body (Big); the 80s-50s nostalgia connection involves teenage protagonists in Back to the Future and Peggy Sue Got Married; the great rock biopic La Bamba involved a 17-year-old, and the sports/coming-of-age hybrid Karate Kid also fits in here.

Somewhere in here are some true gems that might get overlooked in the classic film cannon were they not engulfed in this trend. If there’s any justice, Dirty Dancing is one of them (and don’t forget, it also has to compete with Footloose, and Flashdance among musical teen entries from the 80s).

In the 1950s and 1960s, Jewish families from the Northeast would create their own little summer Eden in the Catskills where Borscht belt humor (think Rodney Daingerfield and Billy Crystal) was created among other cultural inventions. It’s in this exclusive subculture, that Dirty Dancing is set and the film gets the little details of Jewish family life down to a T (as someone who has lived among many Jewish subcultures, I would know).

Our heroine, Frances “Baby” Houseman (Jennifer Grey), is the typical Jewish-American princess: Sheltered, ambitious, and a little too motivated daddy’s approval (Jerry Orbauch). Naturally, it’s a fantasy of a Jewish girl to be attracted by the shiksah, and the camera isn’t particularly subtle that when the burly Johnny Castle (Patrick Swayzee) first emerges in Baby’s eyesight, she’s entranced.

The story has a Romeo-and-Juliet set-up with a strong classist angle. Beyond the servants and campers dichotomy, there’s an extra division between the Ivy League waiters and the dance instructors without that educational pedigree. Considering these quasi-Jews would only be one generation removed at most from being barred from the Ivy Leagues which were selective to WASPs. It’s a strange plot contrivance. Besides, aren’t the dancers the lives of the party? Couldn’t the campers have chalked up their lack of Ivy League education to a choice: Why attend school when you have showbiz in your veins? The most famous thing about these camps in the Catskills was that they berthed Borscht Belt comedians and Jews counted among their ranks the Gershwins and Flo Ziegfeld, so they surely had a respect for the entertainment industry

Even Baby’s saint of a father has some black-and-white views about what seems like a pretty arbitrary division through our modern lens. But, hey, it’s the 80s and we need clear-cut heroes and villains. Further down the villain end is womanizing waiter Robbie who not only impregnates the head dancer (Penny, Cynthia Rhodes), but is pretty amoral about his responsibility for it. He catalyzes much of the plot.

In order to get her money for an abortion, Baby has to take over Penny’s shift which slowly transforms a begrudging co-existence between Johnny and to a full-on romance for the ages. Whatever stage of their relationship this is, the passion is evident and Jennifer Grey has a knack for physical comedy: The montage of her reveling in her new dance moves on the bridge connecting the counselors and campers (how symbolic) is precious. More so, Grey’s Baby is a dynamic character in all the little ways that matter. Near the begging of the movie, she’s bold and outspoken towards someone who threatens her sister, but as she’s dragged further into class conflict, she’s less sure of when to use her words and it shows up in subtle inflections in Grey’s voice.

A lot of the coming-of-age movies are surface-deep. This is one that is grounded in a specific place and time, with characters who are iconic of those places. Plus, the emotion is simply overwhelming. “All the feels” as the young kids say.

Movies Named After Place Names

I’m currently in Atlanta, and something that popped up on my TV was a show named after the city.

I don't love the show for reasons I'll discuss in the post-script*, but I can't help but be bothered by the
sheer brazenness in thinking that your little narrative defines an entire sitcom. The story is about a young man trying to break into hip-hop culture, and because Atlantans consider themselves the capital of hip-hop, it makes some degree of sense, to call a show Atlanta. It is also filmed in Atlanta, so there are recognizable landmarks.

Still, it’s kind of obnoxious to think that your TV show or movie speaks to an entire city. I’ve talked to a couple of locals who say that it’s more of the hip-hop experience than the Atlanta hip-hop experience. Why would a show even want the pressure of appealing to millions of residents of a city, each with their own idea of what Atlanta is?

This is an interesting subgenre of TV shows and films that have tenuous relationships to their place name titles.

Films have varying degrees to how much they use settings as character.

The serialized TV show Ozark has the location baked into the plot. A money launderer is held at gun point by a mobster and improvises a scheme in self-preservation to use the Ozarks as a base of operation. The Ozarks is a stand-in for a shady underworld, but the show goes beyond that. The degree to which the audience surrogates (Jason Bateman and Laura Linney) succeed in their new environment is based on the degree to which they understand the social complexities of this underworld.

In contrast, the 2020 film Arkansas is a dark comedy about two drug pushers on the bottom of the ladder who are forced to wait out the orders of drug kingpin. It takes place in the vague back country South. It’s in the category of films that could take place in the eponymous title, but could also take place anywhere.

Garden State (2004) and (although I'll probably get some fights here) Nebraska (2013) are two films that also fall in the “can happen anywhere” category, but they likely have place name titles because of what is says about their creators

Alexander Payne’s Nebraska, this can be a point of identity for the film maker more than the film. Alexander Payne is from Omaha and it is enough of a source of pride for him that he set his first three films in Nebraska. The film isn’t any sort of socio-economic essay on Nebraska. It’s not even set in Nebraska as it is a road trip through multiple states. But, it represents a director returning to his roots, which parallels a character returning to his roots.

Garden State, a breakthrough indie by then-Scrubs star Zach Braff, has little that can physically place the film in New Jersey. The film revolves around a marginally succesful actor returning from L.A.. to his hometown to reconnect with his friends, father, and fall in love with a manic pixie dream girl. If L.A. Is the big city that people go to to discover their dreams (case study: La La Land), New Jersey can be seen as the anti-LA. It's the densest state in the country, but it's almost entirely dominated by suburbs. In other, the kinds of boring white-bread ho-hum lives where people originate from before making a big move. The character finds enlightenment from returning to his roots.

Does it work? Largely, because Braff made it well-known through his publicity tour and an SNL monologue (in which cast members danced as landmarks of Newark) that it's a love letter to his home state. Still, it's more a symbolic relationship than a real one.

On the other end of the spectrum, Fargo (1996), is a film that represents the Coen Brothers obfuscation of identity. For those that have read interviews with the brothers, they are trolling creators who like to poke fun at any psychoanalysis of their work. The film largely takes place in Minnesota and plays on Minnesota’s geographical tropes but the film’s identity is named Fargo almost as if it is a prank.

On this end, the epic 1973 film Chinatown has nothing to do with Chinatown. The title represents a bad memory and psychological block for the protagonist. It has little to do with the actual neighborhood in Los Angeles. This is a blessing in disguise because if they actually did show the Chinese population of the city as part of a villainous scheme to usurp city control, it wouldn’t be anything but racist.

The more I like into this, the more I find that films like Jim Jarmusch's Mystery Train (1989); the Coen Brothers' O Brother Where Art Thou (2000), Burn After Reading (2008), and A Serious Man (2009); and John Sayles Matewan (1987) and Sunshine State (2002) have the most to do with their settings. And they don't even have manipulative titles.

*I have a largely positive opinion of Donald Glover but the show turns me off in multiple ways. The characters are misogynistic, depressing, and don’t even treat each other well. I view it more as not my cup of tea, than problematic. My problem is more that the critics tend to rain hard on shows of White comedians under the “problematic” banner, whereas they view Black sitcoms as authentic cultural celebrations. In reality, they are both cultural artifacts to be played with and analyzed: Nothing more, nothing less.

Critiquing Some of RogerEbert's More Woke Reviews

 This is a cursory listing of ways in which the website RogerEbert.com primarily preaches one school of thought through their reviews. That school of thought, whether pejoratively described as woke or generously described as championing identity politics, is not something that many readers and movie fans subscribe to as seen by the comment sections of some of these articles or the differences in Rotten Tomato user scores and critic scores in films where identity politics is an issue.

I am one of those users. I am a lifelong democrat who campaigned on the ground in swing states last year to get Democrats elected to office in the presidential , gubernatorial and senator races but I differ from the reviewers in their point of view. I believe that race, gender, and sexual orientation have significant impacts socio-economically but they can be dangerously overused in explaining and proscribing solutions to the world and this is rapidly pervading the entirely critical sphere to the point where we skip steps in critical thought nowadays.

Here is a list of some reviews that I remembered off the top of my head. I will note that when I tried to find more examples from these ones that came from memory, I found many more even-keeled reviews to the credit of the site

Shang Chi and the Legend of the Seven Rings (2021)-Nick Allen takes a Marvel exec’s comment out of context to frame him as cancel-worthy and gets called out for it in the comments.

Uncle Frank (2020)-Odie Henderson condemns the movie because he prefers films to preach hatred towards anyone who has ever had evolving views towards homophobic people, by refusing to sanction a film in which characters are redeemable (to the site’s credit, two separate reviewers defended against the highly publicized criticism of making a racist redeemable in “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri).”

These people are perfectly in character for the year 1969 — hell, I know gay people who had reasonable family members be as baffled by their life choices as recently as the mid-2000s — and there’s little evidence that anyone but Stephen Root’s character was abusive to the protagonist. Henderson’s scorched Earth policy to anyone who might have ever been homophobic is one school of thought but the review doesn’t really speak to an audience who might prefer other ways of dealing with homophobia.

Isle of Dogs (2018)-Odie Henderson finds Wes Anderson’s cultural appropriation enough of a taboo to keep him from recommending the movie. Henderson is a number of critics that subscribes to cultural appropriation as largely a negative act and Wes Anderson as a guilty culprit. I happen to think cultural appropriation is rarely a sinful act and some popular feminist critics such as Lindsey Ellis agree that it’s been a neutral act and many have pointed out cultural appropriation has been a necessary ingredient of cultural development that has rarely discriminated between oppressor or oppressed.

Ironically, a film like Slumdog Millionaire released before woke thought became mainstream did not face legitimate criticism at all and many including Spike Lee noted that the cultural appropriation goal posts had significantly shifted when Kathryn Bigelow made Detroit in 2017 and was bombarded with (in my opinion, unfounded) criticism for her skin color.

Set It Up (2018)-The review largely stays away from identity politics but Matt Zoller Seitz either implies the film is at fault for failing to note that Lucy Liu and Taye Diggs’ characters faced more obstacles than white characters in climbing the corporate ladder or simply wants to enlighten us about what he believes to be this inequality in society. My school of thought is that race is a macroscopic socio-economic measure rather than a one-size-fits-all measure. Therefore, I would say that it is likely those two met more obstacles than white people, but not a definite and it doesn’t have to be a defining aspect of their character.

Val (2021)-Matt Zoller Seitz continues to display a lionization of POC, women, and LGBT populations and uses straightness, whiteness, and maleness as defining attributes often negatively.

Only MZS can answer this (and I have briefly discussed it with him, to his credit) but I wonder whether MZS would not come down nearly as hard on Tracy Morgan or NBA players of the 90s-00s who blatantly disregarded coaches and made their lives hell. My point of view is that any difficult black actors or NBA players deserve empathy as much as someone like Val Kilmer)

What I don’t understand is what MZS isn’t expecting if he clearly wasn’t a fan of Kilmer and my reaction is if the point of writing a review is to speak to your audience, isn’t the audience for a review on a documentary on Val Kilmer, a group of people who don’t have anywhere near the same level of beef with the guy.

As for the specific beef, Kilmer is clearly showing his ability to be professionally difficult by even putting the Frankenheimer tape in the movie and he lets Oprah have the last word rather than film his response to it. Was MZS expecting him to spend the whole movie talking about what a piece of trash he is? He got throat cancer so he’s not in a great state anyway.

With regard to his marriage, an article as recently as 2019 reported Whalley didn’t allege abuse but rather abandonment of his two kids leaving them homeless. I’d hate to not take her at her word, but it’s clear in the video that his two kids are still talking to him unless everything is staged. It should also be noted that if this is a hatchet job on Whaley, it’s a poor one as he says nothing negative about his ex-wife in the entire film.

If Zoller Seitz were to look at life from Val Kilmer’s shoes (which is the point of this film), he would not define himself as a privileged straight, male. Not all people think of life in an oversimplified dichotomy. He would simply think about his life in its regrets and nostalgia. In a mirror accusation of the manic pixie dream girl character or the magic negro tropes, Val Kilmer is a complete person and doesn’t exist to highlight socioeconomic disparities between minority communities.

Tag (2018)-Glenn Kenny essentially argues that white people are not allowed to have fun unless they signal to the audience that they’re thinking about black oppression while having fun. I had trouble believing this was an actual published review when I read it.

Mr. Corman (2020)-I’d argue that reviewer Roxana Hadadi’s insistence on reading the work through a black-and-white (forgive the pun) lens misses the point of the work.

To me, “Mr. Corman” isn’t a work centered around examining white male privilege. Instead, it’s about a white, male character in a funk whose journey towards being a happier person involves being a more selfless person. In the character’s moral orientation, being a better feminist and ally to people of color is important. I agree with the Hadadi that the show is bland but the “finger wagging” is done by Hadadi herself in explaining how the show should be rather than what the show is.